FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: September 26, 2019
The gold medal match is set and will feature Canada up against the Iroquois Nationals to determine who takes home the Cockerton Cup at the 2019 World Lacrosse Men’s Indoor World Championship.
The Iroquois Nationals rallied from a third quarter deficit to edge the United States 9-7 in the first of two semifinals on Thursday night at Langley Events Centre, while in the latter, Canada continued to steamroll their opponents, pounding England 21-4.
The bronze medal game goes Saturday at 5 p.m. with the gold-medal match set to follow at 8 p.m.
Photo Credit Vancouver Sports Pictures
Championship Bracket
The first semifinal was a tight defensive battle as the Iroquois Nationals and the United States were locked up at two goals apiece at halftime.
The Americans would jump ahead by a pair of goals and led 6-5 at the three-quarter mark. But the Iroquois Nationals scored four of the final five goals for the 9-7 victory.
“We have all played lacrosse a long time, we know runs happen, momentum happens, so (the message) was stay calm and keep playing,” said captain Cody Jamieson. “We know it’s not easy to score goals, but they can happen quickly.”
“We always preach not too high, not too low. Yes, as a coach it is nerve-wracking to be standing back there and not do anything besides talk. But our captains stepped up and gave a good little speech there between the third and the fourth and then went out and led by example,” said Iroquois Nationals coach Rich Kilgour. “We were in a tough position but we were confident we could get out of it.”
Jamieson (two goals, four assists), Randy Staats (one goal, three assists) and Tehoka Nanticoke (two goals, one assist) led the Iroquois offence. Miles Thompson, Kyle Jackson and Adam Bomberry rounded out the scoring with a goal apiece.
Warren Hill made 42 saves in the Iroquois goal.
The Americans were led by two goals and six points from Joseph Resetarits and a goal and four helpers from Kieran McArdle. Gale Thorpe chipped in with a pair of goals as part of his four-point night while Connor Kelly and Matt Rambo had a goal apiece.
England jumped out to a 2-0 lead less than a minute in, but the defending champion Canadians weren’t rattled at all, scoring seven straight and never looking back as they coasted to a 21-4 win.
Canada had 11 different goal scorers with Robert Church notching a game-high four goals. Mark Matthews (two goals, eight assists) and Ben McIntosh (three goals, seven assists) each had 10 points while Curtis Dickson had a hat trick and nine points.
In the earlier games for the Championship Bracket, Israel built a 6-0 lead after one quarter, The
Netherlands pulled within a goal at 6-5 early in the second half. But from there, it was all Israel as they scored 16 of the final 18 goals for the 22-7 victory.
Jean-Luc Chetner’s four goals and 13 points led Israel. Zachary Pal (two goals, seven assists), Kyle Bergman (six goals, two assists), Isaac Bock (three goals, two assists) and Jacob Silberlicht (three goals, one assist) also had big games.
Ross Parsons led Netherlands with three goals and six points.
Israel will play Finland for fifth place on Saturday while Netherlands battles the Czech Republic in the seventh/eighth place game.
Finland used a pair of big scoring runs – 7-0 and 6-0 – in each half as they defeated the Czech Republic 17-9. Roope Jokela (two goals, eight assists), Brett Kujala (three goals, six assists) and Robert Raittila (seven goals, one assist) did the bulk of the damage for Finland.
Pavel Dosly (four goals, two assists) and Jiri Kostal (one goal, four assists) were the top Czech scorers.
Photo Credit Vancouver Sports Pictures
Placement Bracket
In a rematch of their day one game, Slovakia and Scotland renewed hostilities. And the game was much closer this time around, tied at 12 with under five minutes to play. But Slovakia would score the final two goals for the 14-12 victory.
Denis Englis (five goals, seven points) and Samuel Postma (one goal, six points) were the top scorers for Slovakia. Scotland countered with three goals and six points off the stick of Cole Paciejewski and Thomas Moffatt set up five goals.
Tied at six at the half, Austria scored six of the final seven goals to defeat Sweden 12-7.
Rintaro Fujita had four goals and eight points in the win and Gerhard Probst and Klaus Hauer had a hat trick and five points apiece. Sweden was led by three goals and six points courtesy of Thomas Johnson and another three goals and four points from Kevin Powers.
Germany built a 6-1 lead and never looked back, defeating Serbia 13-8.
Philipp Broz had a pair of goals as part of a seven-point game while Marc Brandenburger (three goals, one assist) and Justin Wismer (two goals, two assists) each had four-point games.
Serbia’s Ilija Gajic led his team with a goal and six helpers and Alex Gajic had three goals and two assists.
Matthew Taylor scored six times and set up two others with Marty Hyde scoring three goals and finishing with seven points in Australia’s 17-11 win over Ireland. Tristan Rai (one goal, five assists), Jesse Whinnen (two goals, three assists) and Tim Ratje (one goal, four assists) rounded out a balanced Australia attack.
Luke Coppinger (three goals, two assists) and Sean Gibson (four goals) led the Irish.
